


Never a War That Was Not Inward (the One Man Army Remix)

by Megan



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-19
Updated: 2011-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:45:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megan/pseuds/Megan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ike's not going to give up at this so easily-- especially since he doesn't think Soren would, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never a War That Was Not Inward (the One Man Army Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moontyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Never a War that Was Not Inward](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31443) by [Moontyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/pseuds/Moontyger). 



> I had to seriously restrain myself from calling this 'the Ike Fights For His Friends' remix. ;)

Ike didn't honest-to-Ashera hate many things; in fact, subjects he felt _that_ strongly about could have been counted on one hand (and literally so-- mathematics lessons, people who made his sister cry, the Black Knight, the Begnion Senate, and the last days between supply shipments when they were out of meat) up until he discovered the one that pushed him onto counting on a second hand: _court_. If one more person bowed and called him _Lord Ike_ , he was... well, he wasn't entirely sure what he would do, because it wouldn't be a good idea to cause a problem. Elincia would be upset, Mist would be upset, Shinon would be a jackass about it, Soren would take offense to Shinon's being a jackass and destroy something, and soon enough everything would spiral into a riot.

Things that irritated Ike enough to swear made a pretty short list, too, and the lords who kept trying to introduce their daughters was definitely up there. It was kind of in a tie with Shinon's particular kind of jackassery, but rapidly ( _unfortunately_ ) gaining on Kieran waking up before dawn and shouting for Oscar to get out of the kitchen and join him for morning training. Thankfully, they had packed up and left Melior before it got anywhere near the place of honor (dishonor?) on the list. And it had turned out to be a good idea for reasons that had nothing to do with maintaining Ike's sanity and preventing a rampage of destruction through some historic part of Melior.

Almost everyone seemed much happier when they left the city; the only apparent exceptions were Shinon and Gatrie (who were practically in _mourning_ without a red-light district to drink their way through every night now that there wasn't a war going on, but they'd gone without one before plenty of times and hadn't died), and apparently Soren, who had taken to avoiding just about everyone since they'd left. Sure, Soren had been off studying in the capital when the war broke out and he'd returned to the mercenaries, but surely he wasn't so fond of it that he was disappointed he couldn't stay, was he? Whenever Ike had asked him about it, Soren had just said that he'd already learned everything Melior had to offer him and that to stay would merely waste the time and resources of the company.

While Soren keeping to himself was obviously not something new, Soren avoiding _Ike_ was definitely something new and unwelcome. And it didn't stop; it got _worse_ as time went on and they settled back into their routine of training, budgeting, and taking on small missions to pay their bills (because Ike was not going to fund the Greil Mercenaries on Crimea's collective adoration for General Ike, no matter _how_ Soren narrowed his eyes in budget meetings and said that capitalizing on their fame was a matter of financial prudence). Those meetings, where Soren didn't seem to do anything but disagree with Ike where he'd hesitated to push before, were the only times he could _find_ his best friend anymore. He was never in his room when Ike looked, never took meals with everyone else and never trained with everyone else.

It wasn't all that hard to figure out how to find Soren when Ike actually sat down to think about it, though. He would be training, of course, because _not_ honing his magic would have gone against everything Soren was. And he would be doing it when no one else would be around-- that is to say, after most of the people in camp were either asleep or otherwise occupied. That was how Ike knew to look where and when he did: outside the fortress, under a moon bright enough to see around him. Flailing around blindly in the dark wasn't exactly the sort of pointless training Soren would waste his time with, after all.

Not that it was a training choice _Ike_ would have made, regardless of the moonlight; the memory of what had happened the _last_ time he had slipped out of an encampment and drawn his sword under a bright moon was still too raw.

"Soren?" He called out when he saw the cloud of dust he'd _known_ would be there settle; as he got closer, he could see Soren looking... well, definitely not surprised, but maybe a little off-balance. His face went red, just a little, when he saw Ike standing in front of him.

"Yes, Ike?" Soren asked. Ike could practically see his mind working, and he couldn't help but wonder what there was to calculate about this. Surely he wasn't surprised that Ike had come looking for him, that Ike wasn't content with Soren's sudden, inexplicable absence from his life?

"You weren't in your room," he said, and meant _you're never in your room, or on the field, or in the mess or the armory or the storeroom_. And Soren's entire spine stiffened, as if he thought this was some kind of interrogation. This was how Soren got around other people, people who didn't understand how to navigate him-- it was never how he was with Ike, no matter how egregious a thing Ike did.

Soren's answer was sharp and dismissive, but there was something off about it, something that made Ike frown and shake his head and take one step forward and then another, coming closer so that it would be easier to read Soren's face. And the closer he got, the more jarring the difference between Soren's clipped dismissal and the worried look on his face (Ike could tell-- there was a certain way his brows turned down that meant _I'm afraid_ instead of _I'm angry_ , even if it looked the same to everyone else).

It was that worry that made Ike hesitate before coming out and asking the question; instead he looked up at the stars and tried to make conversation. He could understand not wanting to talk about things, if anyone could (he still hadn't talked about the Black Knight with anyone-- not even Mist, who had been there, or Soren, who knew almost everything there was to know about Ike), and he would respect it if Soren decided to keep quiet about whatever it was building a wall between them. But Ike didn't think Soren was there yet; the look on his face as he tilted his head up and looked where Ike asked him to said that he _wanted_ things to change.

Soren probably realized how much his face told Ike, because he turned away and brought his eyes back down to the ground. He stayed like that, silent and tense, and made absolutely no move to keep on talking. So Ike had to make it for him, to start the conversation that had been Ike's entire reason for coming out here.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" Ike asked finally, and he couldn't quite keep a hurt note out of his voice. It was too soon to ask, whatever Soren's reasons for doing it were; he stopped cold, but then turned around with shoulders hunched up and his face fallen from _I'm afraid_ to _I'm angry_.

But whatever it was, it wasn't something Ike had done. That much became absolutely clear when Soren's angry mask cracked and his mouth started moving soundlessly; he was speaking, but the words weren't coming out. All of Ike's defensiveness and hurt flooded away at once; Soren didn't hate him, and he hadn't done anything to make Soren think he couldn't _trust_ him (which would have been unfathomably worse than simply offending Soren enough to sour their friendship). Whatever this was, it was something that Ike could help him fix.

"You'll tell me when you're ready," Ike said, and put a hand on Soren's shoulder from behind. Soren didn't flinch (like Ike half expected him to), but a slight shiver ran through him at the touch. "It's late, and I know you'll be up before dawn. Let's go back, all right?"

The two of them would have plenty of time to work things out, whatever they were; short of someone starting another war on the heels of the one they had just fought (which was unlikely, unless Ashnard had some secret children waiting to take his throne and lead Daein to blood and glory again-- which was probably the scariest thought Ike had come up with in awhile, to be completely honest), they weren't going to have much to do besides talk it out. That was what people did when they weren't fighting wars, after all: they had time to work, to grow their friendships, to fight for the things _really_ worth saving.

Ike dropped his hand from Soren's shoulder after a moment, but walked back to the fortress next to him. Soren didn't try to speed up or slow down; instead he kept pace next to Ike. Soren _would_ tell Ike, when he was ready to; he thought Ike was worth fighting for as much as Ike felt it about Soren.

They would win this war, too.


End file.
